The incident happened within hours of Ou uploading photos on his microblog of a Toyota SUV, one of two vehicles that he said were Guangzhou government cars being used for personal business in Hunan.

Ou, who has more than 104,000 followers on his microblog, claimed that the Toyota was owned by Guangzhou police and he spotted it in the Mao Zedong memorial park in Mao’s hometown of Shaoshan.

“[I] have been monitoring abuses of official vehicles for 10 years, but why do such abuses continue?” Ou said on Thursday afternoon. [Source]

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

[… A] quarter of the way through his ten-year term, he has emerged as the most authoritarian leader since Chairman Mao. In the name of protection and purity, he has investigated tens of thousands of his countrymen, on charges ranging from corruption to leaking state secrets and inciting the overthrow of the state. He has acquired or created ten titles for himself, including not only head of state and head of the military but also leader of the Party’s most powerful committees—on foreign policy, Taiwan, and the economy. He has installed himself as the head of new bodies overseeing the Internet, government restructuring, national security, and military reform, and he has effectively taken over the courts, the police, and the secret police. “He’s at the center of everything,” Gary Locke, the former American Ambassador to Beijing, told me.

[…] Xi describes his essential project as a rescue: he must save the People’s Republic and the Communist Party before they are swamped by corruption; environmental pollution; unrest in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and other regions; and the pressures imposed by an economy that is growing more slowly than at any time since 1990 (though still at about seven per cent, the fastest pace of any major country). “The tasks our Party faces in reform, development, and stability are more onerous than ever, and the conflicts, dangers, and challenges are more numerous than ever,” Xi told the Politburo, in October. In 2014, the government arrested nearly a thousand members of civil society, more than in any year since the mid-nineteen-nineties, following the Tiananmen Square massacre, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Hong Kong-based advocacy group.

[…] For a generation, the Communist Party forged a political consensus built on economic growth and legal ambiguity. Liberal activists and corrupt bureaucrats learned to skirt (or flout) legal boundaries, because the Party objected only intermittently. Today, Xi has indicated that consensus, beyond the Party élite, is superfluous—or, at least, less reliable than a hard boundary between enemies and friends. [Source]

After the death in 1976 of Communist China’s founding father Mao Zedong — who was at the center of a huge personality cult — the party became deeply conservative politically, Pei said, with its innermost circle selecting top leaders who would respect a new set of norms.

There was to be a consensus-based decision-making process, a respect for the physical safety of other party members and — crucially — no strong leaders.

“Both Jiang and Hu were in that mould,” Pei said, noting that other than Xi, the six remaining members of the party’s elite Politburo Standing Committee “are people who will not rock the boat.”

But Pei added: “In the case of Xi, they’ve got the mother of all boat-rockers. The people who picked him must be regretting bitterly that they picked somebody who turned out to be completely different.” [Source]

Xi set up his new mode of governance by rebuilding political authority. He established new institutions and authorities to expand his power and maintain control. These new institutions include the Leading Group for Deepening Reform Comprehensively; the National Security Commission, which former party general secretary Jiang Zemin was unable to establish; and a leading group for cybersecurity and information.

Xi is in charge of all these new institutions. This means that all the institutions of the party, State Council and military are now responsible to Xi and only Xi. As a result, he acts as the de facto party Chairman – like Mao Zedong.

Xi also expanded the scope of party authority. In the 1980s, the State Council controlled the leading institutions of reform. Now it comes under the party’s Central Committee. While the State Council was almost entirely self-governed during Hu’s tenure, Xi has regained control of the reform agenda through his new institutions.

[…] While the details of how Xi rebuilt authority are likely to remain shrouded, the anti-corruption campaign has served as one well-known method. With dirty officials tripping each other up, the campaign has acted as a broom, removing the obstacles to reform. [Source]

It has become accepted wisdom now to say that Xi Jinping is the most powerful leader China has had since Deng Xiaoping. This is almost certainly something that Xi himself would not thank people for pointing out. As the National People’s Congress (NPC) in 2015 has made patently clear, the promises made by the leadership that he sits at the heart of are hostages to fortune — every single one of them. A quarter of the way through his likely time in office, the question is beginning to be raise: when do the real achievements start? Xi has been given all the trappings of power, but is he truly using his titles to make a lasting impact?

The signature themes of this leadership are better quality growth, green and sustainable development, and national self-confidence and status. The Congress addressed all of those items, carrying on from the Plenums of 2013 and 2014. There was plenty of coherence and consistency, certainly. But a nagging question started to raise its head over the first week of March as the two meetings (the NPC and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) were going on: where is the implementation? When is the good news about successful outcomes going to start? Beijing’s pollution continued to be a visible reminder of how entrenched some problems are. And the drama of the anti-corruption campaign, while it shows the muscular side of power, is froth on the surface. For the 1.3 billion people across China, how do they feel their lives are doing under the new leadership? This is the one question that Xi and co. need to fear the answer to. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/xi-jinping-rise-of-the-red-prince/feed/0Tycoon Denies Colluding with Disgraced Spy Ma Jianhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/tycoon-denies-colluding-disgraced-spy-ma-jian/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/tycoon-denies-colluding-disgraced-spy-ma-jian/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 07:01:06 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182456Several Chinese media outlets have accused real estate developer Guo Wengui of having conspired with Ma Jian, the former deputy minister of state security, in a plot that removed Beijing’s former vice mayor from office over a property project dispute. Guo’s real estate company Beijing Zenith Holdings Co. was involved in a corporate dispute with state-owned Founder Group that was linked to Xi Jinping’s ongoing corruption investigations. Nectar Gan at South China Morning Post reports:

Financial news outlets Tencent, Caixin and Caijing last week alleged that Guo Wengui, controlling shareholder of Beijing Zenith Holdings and Beijing Pangu Investment, conspired with government officials – including former deputy spy chief Ma Jian who came under investigation for corruption in January – in his rise to riches.

[…]Mainland media earlier reported that Guo allegedly plotted the fall of former Beijing vice-mayor Liu Zhihua after Liu refused to help him recover the development rights to the Pangu Plaza project next to the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium in Beijing. The reports also said that Ma or his aide had a role in a 2006 sex-tape scandal that brought down Liu.

But Guo denied the plot, saying Ma had only helped put him in touch with the nation’s top anti-graft agency, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, so that Guo could report Liu’s wrongdoings, after all the other departments he had approached rejected him.

He said he met Liu – through the arrangement of “one of the top leaders from the Communist Party’s Central Committee” – to ask the Beijing vice-mayor to reclaim the rights to his Pangu Plaza project, but that Liu refused to do so. He declined to reveal further details on the matter. [Source]

In 2002, Morgan Investment and Zenith bought two plots of land in northern Beijing. The parcel bought by Morgan Investment was near the Olympic park planned for the 2008 Games – about 500 meters from the iconic National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest.

[…]In October 2005, the capital’s land bureau revoked Morgan Investment’s rights to the Olympic park plot, saying the company failed to pay for the property in full. Morgan Investment sued the bureau in January 2006, but lost. All of its licenses regarding the development of the plot were revoked.

Sources close to Morgan Investment said the company lobbied officials for help in the matter. Guo went to the then vice mayor of Beijing, Liu Zhihua, who was in charge of land use and Olympic projects development, to get the changes reversed. However, Liu refused to help.

In May 2006, the plot was resold to Beijing Capital Group and Guangxi Yangguang Co. Ltd. for 1.76 billion yuan. But then two weeks later Liu Zhihua and Beijing Capital Group chairman Liu Xiaoguang were detained for graft. [Source]

Caixin, a Chinese media group that provides financial and business news via various periodicals and its website, said on Monday that it has reported businessman Guo Wengui, who it says defamed the media group and its founding editor Hu Shuli, to the police and is taking legal action against Guo for “spreading rumors.”

The ongoing feud between Guo, founder of real estate company Beijing Zenith Holdings Co Ltd, and Caixin media started when the media outlet released a report on March 25, detailing Guo’s alleged links to several political scandals and controversial business deals in recent years.

[…] The report triggered an angry backlash from Guo, who issued a statement alleging that editor Hu has used her personal relationship with Li You to illegally secure a profitable stake in the Founder Group.

The statement, which was posted Sunday on Guo’s company Pangu Plaza’s official Weibo, has been taken down by Monday. [Source]

The South China Morning Post today interviewed Guo Wengui, who is currently in the United States, and asked when he will return home [to China]. He responded: :”[This is] for sure! This is my country. Why wouldn’t I return? First of all, I haven’t broken the law; secondly, I haven’t committee any crime. so why wouldn’t I go back?” He also voiced his respect for former deputy head of public security Ma Jian, who is currently under investigation: “If it weren’t for him, I would[n’t] be where I am today.” [Source]

[Editor’s note: This post has been edited to clarify the accusations made by Guo Wengui against Hu Shuli.]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/tycoon-denies-colluding-disgraced-spy-ma-jian/feed/0Public Confessions and the CCP’s Fight for Dominancehttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/public-confessions-and-the-ccps-fight-for-dominance/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/public-confessions-and-the-ccps-fight-for-dominance/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 06:00:09 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182449Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, a number of high-profile journalists and government critics who found themselves on the wrong side of the law—including Charles Xue, Shen Hao, and Gao Yu—have been shown publicly “confessing” on television. Duihua Foundation wrote that such televised confessions can sabotage the legal process and “indicate that dignity and fairness are not afforded equally to all Chinese citizens.” But in giving a history of self-confessions in China, David Bandurski argues for China Media Project that something even more sinister is currently at work: the CCP’s “internal politics of dominance.” Bandurski uses the example of Shi Lianwen, a former executive at Liaoning TV, to illustrate how this plays out for the country’s media:

In Xi Jinping’s new confessional movement, there are shades of the Party’s troubled political past. Questions of guilt and innocence are subservient to the imperatives of political power.

Shi Lianwen, the former television executive whose videotaped self-confession is now being promoted through the official website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, may not be innocent. He stands convicted of clearly specified acts of graft, including the acceptance of cash payouts of 11.4 million yuan, about US$1.8 million, while he was director of Liaoning Television from 2009 to 2012. (Corruption investigators, with their penchant for peppering corruption-related releases with lurid and colourful details, have also said Shi accepted a valuable piece of bloodstone.)

But watch or read Shi Lianwen’s “confession” on the CCDI website, where it is part of a new multimedia feature series called “Records of Confession” (忏悔录), and it becomes clear that Shi’s primary crime is not the breaking of the law per se — rather, it is his betrayal of the trust and responsibility vested in him by the Chinese Communist Party.

The supremacy of politics and ideology over the law becomes oddly clear as Shi Lianwen confesses to having an overly commercial mindset in his management of Liaoning Television. [Source]

[..A]s part of Mr. Xi’s ongoing campaign to keep the media in line, CCTV broadcast the repentant statements of the likes of journalists Chen Yongzhou and Gao Yu and the respected editor Shen Hao. These influential figures appeared before the nation pressured to admit that they had blackmailed companies or to show regret for leaking national secrets.

Seventy-year-old Gao Yu, arrested for giving state secrets to foreign media, dressed in prison clothes, said to the camera, “I admit that what I’ve done touched on legal issues and threatened national interests.” She continued: “My actions were very wrong. I have sincerely learned my lesson, and I admit my guilt.”

Her lawyer later said that she had made her televised statement only because the government had threatened her son. As for Charles Xue and others, we have no evidence that similar tactics were used, but considering their predicament after arrest, noncooperation would have called for great courage.

Socialist countries tend to emphasize national and collective interest ahead of individual rights and dignity. This has been a constant throughout 66 years of Communist rule in China, but in the past two years the tendency has become increasingly strident. Cases of public shaming show us how in the name of some great cause, individual rights, dignity and privacy can all be sacrificed. [Source]

Put bluntly, the case against Gao Yu for the so-called “leaking of state secrets overseas” is nothing more than a case of Gao Yu fulfilling the sacred duty of a journalist, by telling the public the facts about Document No. 9, which was issued by the office of the Communist Party central committee in 2013.

I hear that she is regarded as “smearing the name of the central committee,” “vilifying the party,” and “causing irreparable damage to the reputation of both party and country.”

Do these charges really stand up?

If Gao Yu had spread disinformation; if she had forged Document No. 9, than of course it would be right to charge her with smearing the name of party and state.

The problem is that the government has already said quite truthfully that Gao leaked, rather than forged, Document No. 9, confirming that her reports about it were totally accurate. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/public-confessions-and-the-ccps-fight-for-dominance/feed/0Minitrue: Delete News on Uyghur Jailed for Beardhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/minitrue-delete-news-on-uyghur-jailed-for-beard-karamay-fire/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/minitrue-delete-news-on-uyghur-jailed-for-beard-karamay-fire/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 02:17:24 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182454The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. The name of the issuing body has been omitted to protect the source.

Take care to delete the following articles: 1) “Man Who Publicly Wore Large Beard, Instigated Wife to Wear Veil, Sentenced to Six Years”; 2) “Online Publication of Information About Karamay Bungalow Fire Banned.” 中文

[…T]he six-year jail sentence, reportedly for “picking quarrels and making trouble,” would represent a particularly severe punishment. According to the Kashgar Special Zone News, the 38-year-old man had grown a beard in 2010 and refused to shave it off despite repeated demands from local officials. It was unclear if he faced other charges: the maximum sentence for the reported charge is normally five years.

[…] The original report, issued Friday, cited the political and legal affairs committee of the Kashgar government as the source. It was picked up by major Chinese Web portals on Sunday, but later deleted by censors. On Monday, the reporter concerned wrote an apology for filing “a false report,” although there was considerable skepticism online about whether this apology was genuine or made under pressure from red-faced local officials.

[…] The story was originally issued as part of a series of stories on the achievements Kashgar has made in getting rid of burqas. Officials were quoted as boasting that the city’s court has sentenced a number of “outlaws blinded by religious extremism, who wear burqas, veils and grow beards.” The Kashgar Special Zone News is a free supplement included in local papers. [Source]

The initial accounts spurred debate among users of China’s popular online social networks.

Some said the punishment was an appropriate way to guard against extremism. “Anyone dressed that way is a terrorist, not a Muslim!” wrote one user on Sina Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

Others dismissed the anti-beard campaign as a “simple and crude” measure that would do little to ensure public safety, or referred to the beard worn by the German political theorist whose writings are a cornerstone of Communist Party ideology. One commenter asked, “How many years would Marx have been sentenced to?” [Source]

By bringing up the issue at the WTO, where member countries can legally challenge foreign laws that affect trade, the United States has put pressure on China to explain how the regulations – which aim to promote “secure and controllable” banking technology – comply with global trade rules.

“Could China explain what ‘controllable’ means?,” the U.S. filing asked. “Do the guidelines apply to foreign-owned banks operating in China?”

Although it did not question China’s right to improve cybersecurity, it said the definition of “secure and controllable” would severely limit access to the commercial banking sector for many foreign products and services and dictate the business decisions of financial institutions.

That raised the question of compliance with WTO rules, which bar countries from favoring domestic producers over competitors abroad, the United States said. [Source]

Recent reports by U.S. authorities that the law has been put on hold for good have turned out to be premature. The law will likely be somewhat revised to address some Western concerns, since Beijing is still technologically dependent on foreign companies, despite a push to eliminate foreign technology in key sectors by 2020. “Currently, the deliberation on this law is ongoing,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on March 16.

What to make of this development? In short, China is trying to accomplish two things. First, the law fits into Xi Jinping’s broader plans to clear banks, the military, state-owned enterprises and key government agencies from its dependency on foreign technology (e.g., Microsoft’s Windows operating system and core servers) by 2020. The already existing trend in Beijing towards technological nationalism was merely amplified by the NSA spying revelations.

[…] Since China still has to rely on foreign technology in the immediate future, the law, which the Chinese leadership knew would stir controversy, might have been intended as a “shot across the bow.” In other words, China wanted to tell the United States government not to overplay its hands in cyberspace and engage in what Beijing called “reckless behavior” in the critical months ahead (both countries are currently negotiating a bilateral investment treaty).

[…] The over-the-top draft counter-terrorism law is an insurance card for Beijing. For one, it will ensure that the United States will abstain from publicly exposing yet another Chinese cyberespionage ring. Since almost all the major American IT companies are active in China (with a few notable exceptions), Beijing can dangle the law over the U.S. private sector’s head to encourage cooperation. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/u-s-questions-chinas-banking-technology-restrictions/feed/0Badiucao (巴丢草): Free the Fivehttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/badiucao-%e5%b7%b4%e4%b8%a2%e8%8d%89-free-the-five/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/badiucao-%e5%b7%b4%e4%b8%a2%e8%8d%89-free-the-five/#commentsMon, 30 Mar 2015 00:35:26 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182436Badiucao honors the five female activists—Wu Rongrong, Li Tingting (aka Li Maizi), Zheng Churan (aka Da Tu), Wei Tingting, and Wang Man—who are currently under criminal detention on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” The five were detained, along with other activists who were subsequently released, on the eve of International Women’s Day on March 8, while planning a public awareness campaign against sexual harassment. Two of the women, Wu Rongrong and Wang Man, are reportedly suffering from serious health conditions while in detention.

President Xi should see that there is no place for such government thuggery in his campaign to modernize China. He has the chance to build a legacy embracing the advancement of human rights. Instead, he appears to be succumbing to the history of Communist Party leaders who fear citizens’ protests as a prelude to subversion. The Yirenping women stand as a noble opportunity for China, not a threat. [Source]

We are currently experiencing the largest DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack in github.com’s history. The attack began around 2AM UTC on Thursday, March 26, and involves a wide combination of attack vectors. These include every vector we’ve seen in previous attacks as well as some sophisticated new techniques that use the web browsers of unsuspecting, uninvolved people to flood github.com with high levels of traffic. Based on reports we’ve received, we believe the intent of this attack is to convince us to remove a specific class of content. [Source]

GitHub was briefly blocked inside China in 2013, but reinstated after an outcry from programmers. Because GitHub uses encryption to hide specific parts of the site, the Chinese government cannot selectively block only some of GitHub’s content. But blocking the site wholesale could be damaging to China’s economy because it is so widely used by the tech industry.

Forcing GitHub site to take down GreatFire’s pages, as Newland suggested is the attackers’ goal, would solve this dilemma. Peterson also addressed the question of attribution:

While determining the entities behind these types of attacks is difficult, the Chinese government would be an obvious culprit, said James A. Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The only people who would really benefit from it would be China,” he said. Using such a bold tactic to attack content it dislikes seems to be either a way for the government to send a message or test out new capabilities, he said. [Source]

Security expert Mikko Hypponen similarly told Motherboard that “I have no proof it’s the Chinese government. But who else would have the motive? Who else would have the capability to hijack traffic like this?” On Twitter, he added:

The DDoS attacks against Github and AWS (both done with hijacked Baidu traffic) are meant to silence the great work done by @GreatFireChina.

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/new-attack-on-anti-censorship-site-snares-baidu-github/feed/0China to Invite Foreign Forces to Join Military Paradehttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/china-invite-foreign-forces-join-military-parade/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/china-invite-foreign-forces-join-military-parade/#commentsSat, 28 Mar 2015 03:17:44 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182410To mark the upcoming 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat at the end of World War Two, China will be conducting an elaborate military parade this fall to which foreign military representatives and world leaders, including Japan’s prime minister, are invited to attend. The Associated Press reports:

A defence ministry spokesman, Geng Yansheng, said foreign government and military leaders would be invited as observers and members of their armed forces would be welcome to march in the parade.

The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, had been invited, the South China Morning Post reported. However, he was reluctant to accept, according to government sources in Tokyo, as it would signal Japan’s submission to its former enemy.

[…] “Through the military parade, China hopes to demonstrate our firm stance, join hands with the rest of the world, safeguard the victorious outcome of the second world war, maintain world peace and stability, and create a better future for mankind,” Geng said at a monthly news conference.

He said the parade would take place on or around the 2 September anniversary of Japan’s formal surrender. Invitations would go out to countries that fought in the conflict as well as to some with no direct connection, Geng said, without mentioning individual nations by name. [Source]

The foreign minister said on Sunday that Japan’s political leaders needed to be more sincere in dealing with historical issues – and suggested that if they were then China would be open to inviting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to a military parade and other events marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war.

[…] “Seventy years ago Japan lost the war. Seventy years afterwards, Japan must not lose its conscience,” he said.

“Will it continue to carry the baggage of history or will it make a clean break with past aggression? Ultimately, the choice is Japan’s.”

[…] A major focus is on whether Abe will uphold Japan’s past apologies, such as those expressed in statements on the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the war’s end, which used the terms “colonial rule” and “aggression”. [Source]

[…] “This year’s military parade is special in the sense that it is not only China that will take part in the parade, and it is actually an international event,” Geng told reporters. “[W]e are inviting the leaders of other countries to observe the military parade and we are also inviting the militaries of other countries to send their own contingents or teams to take part in and observe the military parade.” Geng added that “the purpose [of the parade] is to refresh people’s memories of the past and love for peace, pay tribute to the national martyrs, and create a better future.”

[…] A more detailed article published in Xinhuasheds more light on this year’s parade. Rather than displaying China’s latest military technologies, as the National Day parades do, this parade will have a different focus: promoting an image of China’s military forces as peacekeepers. “The world will see the PLA as important force of promoting peace,” a researcher at the PLA Academy of Military Science told Xinhua. A top PLA Navy advisor agreed, telling Xinhua that “the parade will convey to the world that China is devoted to safeguarding international order after WWII, rather challenging it.” [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/china-invite-foreign-forces-join-military-parade/feed/0Novelists Throw Spotlight on China’s Past and Presenthttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/novelists-shine-light-on-chinas-hidden-past-and-sensitive-present/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/novelists-shine-light-on-chinas-hidden-past-and-sensitive-present/#commentsSat, 28 Mar 2015 01:13:43 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182406At The Telegraph, Tom Phillip’s takes a look at novelist Yan Lianke’s most recent work, set during the Great Famine of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and the author’s decision to tackle the subject despite the fact that its sensitive nature will keep it from being published in China:

“As long as we remember, we can stop such a thing happening again. But without memory anything could happen. Perhaps not a famine but another kind of disaster,” the Beijing-based author of “The Four Books” said.

Almost 60 years have passed since Chairman Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” – a catastrophic attempt to turn China into an industrial superpower to rival Britain – unleashed chaos in the Chinese countryside and resulted in the deaths of millions of people.

However, Beijing continues to resist revisiting the Communist Party’s role in the famine for fear it would undermine its authority and grip on power. The famine is still officially refered to as “The Three Years of Natural Disasters”.

[…] “It isn’t mentioned in textbooks, in media reports, in literature,” Mr Yan said. “They have achieved their aim – young people born in the 1980s and 1990s have no idea about this part of history. One of literature’s most important tasks is to keep the memory alive.” [Source]

Yan – winner of last year’s Franz Kafka Prize and a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize – is both one of China’s most esteemed authors as well as one of its most censored. He spent two decades as a military propaganda writer, but after the publication of The Joy of Living, a story about a village of disabled peasants, he was asked to leave the army. His 2006 novel Dream of Ding Village, about impoverished peasants who contract Aids via illegal blood selling, won the Man Asian Literary Prize but was banned on the mainland.

Yan wrote The Four Books for the overseas reader, abandoning any hope that it would be published in China even before he began writing it. “I’ve always dreamed of being able to write without any regard for publication. The Four Books is [at least partially] an attempt to write recklessly and without concern for the prospect of getting published,” he says in the foreword. [Source]

The novel opens with Yang Fei, a poor, freshly deceased tutor, late for his ­appointment at the local crematorium. There’s heavy traffic, and the 203 bus isn’t running. When he finally makes it to the facility, he discovers that the ­inequalities that separate the living continue to ­divide the dead. The V.I.P.s have their own ­waiting area, with comfy armchairs. Newly dead officials boast of burial plots that await them on mountain peaks with ocean views. Their “organic headstones” have already been ordered. Realizing that he doesn’t have adequate funerary garments or even an urn, Yang Fei declines to ­answer when his number is called. ­Instead, he leaves the crematorium. On a journey of post-mortem discovery, he is eventually reunited with his beloved ­father and reconciles with his ex-wife, who has just committed suicide.

In Yang Fei’s limbo walk, the dead ­offer lurid accounts of corruption, police ­violence, political repression and the demolition of homes with their residents still inside, along with tales of the day-to-day mistreatment suffered by ordinary Chinese at the hands of the powerful and the wealthy. Some of these stories, which read as if they had been drawn from the country’s sensationalist press, provide occasions for broad satire — as when a cross-dressing prostitute steals into a police station to attack the cop who arrested and tortured him. The policemen defend their failure to protect a colleague: “People who arrive at the public security bureau with backpacks are normally there to deliver bribes. . . . Who could have known that this guy would pull out a knife?” […] [Source]

[…] “The Seventh Day” plays out over the course of a week, and even when characters reminisce about days long gone—the book takes place in the afterlife, fertile ground for self-reflection—their tone is permeated by the anxieties of contemporary China. […]

[…] The entertaining and intriguing afterlife imagined by Mr. Yu often serves as a canvas for the author to comment on the current state of China. […]

[…] The novel weaves together a series of deaths that reflect back on the world of the living. It shows how, in a time when increased censorship hampers the work of journalists in China, fiction offers another way to tell the story of now. That’s ultimately what makes Mr. Yu’s departure from epic so timely: In narrowing his lens, his work carries new urgency. [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/novelists-shine-light-on-chinas-hidden-past-and-sensitive-present/feed/0IMF: China One of the World’s Most Unequal Countrieshttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/imf-china-one-of-the-worlds-most-unequal-countries/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/imf-china-one-of-the-worlds-most-unequal-countries/#commentsFri, 27 Mar 2015 22:51:10 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182399An International Monetary Fund (IMF) working paper on fiscal policy and income inequality in China and other developing countries shows that China is “one of the most unequal countries in the world” and warns that the income gap may continue to grow without policy adjustments. The Wall Street Journal’s Ian Tatley reports:

Authors Serhan Cevik and Carolina Correa-Caro write that the rich are gleaning most of the fruits of the transition from a system of centrally-planned socialism to a market-oriented economy.

[…] “China’s widening income inequality is largely a reflection of faster income growth among the rich, rather than stagnant living standards among the poor,” the two economists said.

[…] Beijing’s economic strategy has aimed at higher growth rates. Although that effort may have lifted many Chinese out of poverty, the two economists said there’s mounting evidence that the widening income gap could weigh on future growth. That, they said, could come “with significant social consequences, especially in a country like China aiming to move beyond the ‘middle income’ status.”

To relieve those potential pressures, the two economists recommend ramping up taxes to pay for a redistribution of income: raising taxes on higher earners, broadening the personal tax and imposing a value-added tax on services. At the same time, Beijing could lower labor taxes that hit low- and middle-income earners, they said. [Source]

Has China suddenly become a nation of (admittedly entrepreneurial) scammers? It’s not entirely clear whether fake begging is relatively new or is a long-standing trend that social media has made easier to detect. But there’s no debate that since China’s economic reforms began in 1978, the Community Party has dismantled much of the country’s welfare system, leaving only a thin social safety net for the urban poor. Relaxed domestic travel restrictions have unleashed a flood of rural migrants to the cities, while swift but uneven economic development has left China with a wealth disparity among the widest in the world. That means there are many in truly desperate straits, but there’s also more money sloshing about for those with the chutzpah to feign poverty. The question is how many have truly falsified their beggar status and how many have been erroneously held out as exemplars of the practice—fake fake beggars, in other words.

[…] For its part, Chinese state-run media appears more interested in calling out fraud than tackling the larger social issues at play, which might tend to point the finger at government authorities. State-run China Daily reported in June 2013 that in the southern provincial capital of Nanjing, 80 percent of those begging in the city’s subways were fake, meaning they were capable of work and did not come from poor homes. This narrow definition does not take into account any of the many extenuating circumstances that may prevent a physically whole person from obtaining employment. The report lamented that some beggars “may have a monthly income of up to $1600,” more than three times the average monthly per capita income of Nanjing residents. […] [Source]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/imf-china-one-of-the-worlds-most-unequal-countries/feed/0Feng Zhenghu’s Airport Diary: Your Twitter Fans Awaithttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/feng-zhenghus-airport-diary-your-twitter-fans-await/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/feng-zhenghus-airport-diary-your-twitter-fans-await/#commentsFri, 27 Mar 2015 19:43:19 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182394After he was denied re-entry to China eight times, Feng Zhenghu lived in Tokyo’s Narita Airport for 92 days in 2009-2010. Now Feng is telling the story of his airport odyssey on his blog, and CDT is translating his account.

November 22, 2009

Feng Zhenghu in the Tiananmen Times. (Source: Feng Zhenghu)

Today is Sunday. In the morning, the chief editor of Australia-based Tiananmen Times called to interview me.In the afternoon, my Fudan University classmate Yang Lujun came from Shanghai to visit. We’ve been friends for over twenty years. His return flight isn’t scheduled for another three days, and he had the travel agency book him at the nearby Crowne Plaza Hotel so he could come chat with me each day. I told him that after he enters Japan, he can’t come back here. He stayed with me until about 8:00 p.m., and only then reluctantly left. He’s been worried for me, but now that he’s seen that my mind is in a good state he can feel relieved. I hope to see him back in Shanghai.

A Japanese writer, Ms. Atsuko, took a plane from China to visit me. She conveyed a greeting from well-known blogger Lian Yue to me in fluent Chinese. She told me that my Twitter account was gaining a following very quickly, with more than 3,000 followers already, and that their blogs would also help to propagate the story of my return home. She specially delivered a dry-erase board, a few markers, and an eraser. It will take the place of my cardstock. I’m no longer so wretched—I have modernized a bit. The content and color of my protest signs will now change often, and will attract the eyes of travelers passing by.

Today many people called to share their concern, among them a Japanese man who in Chinese conveyed the regards and support of Liu Guokai in the U.S. Mr. Wang Dan, who teaches at National Taiwan University also called to say hello. Liu Guokai is the chairman of the overseas China Social Democratic Party. Wang Dan was a student leader during the Tiananmen protests who then went into exile in the U.S. Like me, he can’t return home. He now makes a living in Taiwan.

Just now Mr. Yan from Desai Gongyuan called. “Many friends in the mainland are very worried after not seeing any Twitter updates from you today,” he said. “Is anything the matter?” I told him, “Thanks to everyone for their concern. I’m fine. I was just chatting with an old classmate this afternoon and had no time to get on my computer. I’ll post to Twitter right now.” [Chinese]

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/feng-zhenghus-airport-diary-your-twitter-fans-await/feed/0Phrase of the Week: Use the Internet Scientificallyhttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/phrase-of-the-week-use-the-internet-scientifically/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/phrase-of-the-week-use-the-internet-scientifically/#commentsThu, 26 Mar 2015 22:28:35 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182376The Word of the Week comes from the Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon, a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China’s online “resistance discourse,” used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness.

BenbenbendeBenny (@笨笨笨的Benny): Oh no! No wonder I’m trapped behind the wall! A whole bunch of tools to use the Internet scientifically have almost all stopped working. Can’t they let a guy live? I just want to check Google+… (March 25, 2015)

]]>http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/phrase-of-the-week-use-the-internet-scientifically/feed/0Feng Zhenghu’s Airport Diary: A Generation With Idealshttp://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/feng-zhenghus-airport-diary-a-generation-with-ideals-19/
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/03/feng-zhenghus-airport-diary-a-generation-with-ideals-19/#commentsThu, 26 Mar 2015 21:27:57 +0000http://chinadigitaltimes.net/?p=182349After he was denied re-entry to China eight times, Feng Zhenghu lived in Tokyo’s Narita Airport for 92 days in 2009-2010. Now Feng is telling the story of his airport odyssey on his blog, and CDT is translating his account.

This entry includes pop-up notes to help contextualize the many literary allusions in the essay “Lu Xun Hits the Road, His Characters Jump for Joy.” Hover over underlined text for explanation.

November 21, 2009

I fell asleep last night at about 11:30. I finally shed the dirty clothes I’d been wearing for 17 days, and replaced them with long underwear sent by my mainland friend from Desai Gongyuan, the Italian casual sportswear from my Taiwanese friend, and fresh socks, then covered myself in my down jacket and went to sleep.

I’m still sleeping on the bench, and even though I have two sleeping bags I still haven’t used them. Their outer layers are so thin that if I set them directly on the cold hard floor, a chill reaches my back. That can’t be good for my body in the long run. I’ll wait until I have another layer, then try again.

Last night I slept on a small pillow made of this special foam with a flannel cover. This is the pillow the Taiwanese grad student Ms. Lin brought me. A few days ago, Ai Weiwei’s assistant brought me a little stuffed alpaca, which I had been using as a pillow. According to a friend, this alpaca is known as a “grass-mud horse” on the Chinese Internet, where it is used to mock the “harmonious society.”

I didn’t know all this at first, and just thought this South American alpaca was very cute. It made me happy. Even though it was an inanimate object, I looked at it as a companion. In an idle moment I stroke its fleece and whisper a few words to it. I set it up on the window sill to guard my three protest signs and two protest shirts. Whenever a traveler passes by and sees my protest statements, the alpaca repays them with a cheery smile.

I can’t bear to use such a good companion as a pillow. It’s already been many days since I’ve washed my hair, and the filth would blacken his fleece. So, when it’s time to sleep at night I would first wrap him in a clean towel. Now, his hard days laboring as a pillow are over.

At 9:50 this morning, a call came from New York. Wang Juntao, Lü Jinhua, Wang Tiancheng, Li Jinjin, and Zhao Yan were together, and each spoke with me to send their regards and support for my return home. At around 11:20 I did a live broadcast interview with Sound of Hope Network, answering the audience’s empathetic questions about my experience trying to return home, my situation while held up here at Narita Airport, and about the prospects of the rights of Chinese citizens to return home.

I am a human rights defender—not a democracy activist, not a religious believer, and certainly not a Chinese Communist Party member. But when it comes to a Chinese citizen’s right of return, there is no division of faith, party, or place in the system. Everyone supports my return to country and home. This is everyone’s basic human right. Each person may have his own religious belief, her own political view, and different party affiliations, but the right of return is commonly shared. Even a criminal is allowed to return to his country to stand trial.

Today is Saturday. At the request of airport management I won’t take any interviews from Japanese or foreign media. Saturdays, Sundays, and Japanese national holidays are their days of rest, and arranging interviews on those days would be an inconvenience. Jiji Press had already made an appointment with me for next Tuesday. Of course, telephone interviews are not confined by time or space. At 3:30 in the afternoon a call from France came and I did an interview with a broadcast journalist on the phone.

Of the text messages I receive, many are from university students in China, and some even come from high school students. I’m gratified that these young people care about my story and are spreading it. They are China’s hope. Many older people grumble that their children’s generation is selfish and self-centered, lacking ideals and unconcerned with state affairs. However, I have always thought that the younger generation is capable of achievements surpassing our own. Because they cherish the rights and values of the individual, they are able to defend civil rights and demand the advancement of rule of law.

The younger generation is fed up with the empty, dogmatic ideals of democracy, freedom, and communism because they already have in their heart the ideal of a rich and happy life, the ideal of actual substance. If the country doesn’t respect their rights as citizens, then they will be apathetic towards national issues both great and small. Actually, it’s our generation that is broken. Since childhood we learned to sacrifice ourselves for the interests of the country and the collective, that we are tiny cogs that can be abandoned at will by the those controlling the machinery of the state. There is no room to resist, and we are ashamed to protest our own rights, since this would be picky and selfish of us. We don’t believe in our own power as citizens, and we don’t trust the law. Our fear and flattery of the powerful is ingrained, yet we self-righteously insist this is in obeisance to the interests of the state.

Here I’ll share a university student’s text message, as well as the article that he recommended:

“I wish you an early return home. You’ve suffered so much. I am a university student. I don’t want to say any more. I believe that many others have already wished you well. I recently read this essay. Have you seen it yet?”

Lu Xun Hits the Road, His Characters Jump for Joy

Recently, the People’s Educational Press has been gradually removing Lun Xun’s essays from the latest editions of their textbooks, causing no small amount of controversy. While some approve of the move, others continue to resist. I believe that after years of silence, avoidance, and indifference towards the issues Lu Xun wrote about, it’s finally come time to give him the boot.

The reason that Lu Xun’s getting the boot is that the very same characters that he attacked, criticized, mocked, and pitied have been resurrected, and Lu Xun’s very existence fills them with dread, panic, and abject cowardice to the point of being ashamed to show their faces in public.

Just consider:

The Kong Yijis have been resurrected. With a treatise on “Four Ways to Write the Character for ‘Aniseed’” one is promoted to the ranks of professor, scholar, and master of the study of Chinese civilization. No longer do people “steal books” with bated breath, but instead calmly “steal articles” online; not only can they “warm a bowl of wine” at their leisure, they can also use their allure as academic advisors to lay down a set of unwritten rules for themselves. How in the world could they ever let Lu Xun reveal their previous incarnations?!

The “winded running dogs of the capitalists” have been resurrected. Even though they drape themselves in the clothing of the elite, of the expert, still “they see all rich people as docile, and all poor people as barking mad.” They either act like angels but play the devil, mucking with numbers and celebrating the inevitability and rationality of prices aligning with the U.S.’s and salaries aligning with Africa’s; or else they become the “winded running dogs” of the foreigner to cheat the Chinese people, colluding with outsiders, tricking their way to success. How in the world could they ever let Lu Xun knock them off their pedestals all over again?!

Zhao Guoweng, Mr. Chao, Uncle Kang, Whiskers Wang, and Young D have all been resurrected. Some have snuck into the police force, while others have joined the public security joint defence force or become chengguan. Thrilled to put on uniforms, their faces are “so plump they are ready to burst.” Clutching “invisible four-meter lances,” they wield reason and the law to conduct the shady business of blackmail and forcing women into prostitution. If a certain Mr. Xia doesn’t behave in prison, then there’s no need to “slap him around,” they can simply deal with him by playing a game of “hide-and-seek” instead. Just think, how in the world could these low-life thugs ever permit themselves to be taken to task by a witty nobody like Lu Xun?

The Ah Qs have been resurrected. They’ve left the Tutelary God’s Temple and moved into the Internet cafes, and their rousing call for action is no longer “we want revolution!” but “we want democracy!” Day and night they dream of the day that a squadron of American marines decked out in “white helmets and white armor” show up, guns blazing, and establish democracy in China. Because as soon as democracy arrives, then all of Mr. Chao’s money, and Amah Mu, and the wife of the scholar Xiu Cai, and all of the other young girls in Weichuang, they’ll all belong to me! Hrmph! But if Lu Xun insists that I play the part of the wronged spirit, ridiculed by the common people for decades on end, then how in the world could I ever let him be?!

The imitation foreign devils have been resurrected. This time around they’ve gone right ahead and gotten foreigncitizenship, becoming actual foreign devils. Not only that, but they weasel their way into the cast of the next “patriotic blockbuster,” playing the parts of righteous gentlemen and ambitious scholars consumed with concern for their country and their people. It’s really unsettling. One moment they are choked with sobs, eulogizing their motherland, and the next they are pissing into the big bronze ding of Chinese civilization. Is this not the stuff of Lu Xun’s essays?!

The reason why Lu Xun is getting the boot is that today’s society no longer requires “javelins or daggers.” Instead we require songs of praise, cosmetics, anesthetic. We need dance halls, mahjong tables, the lottery, the stock market. It’s just like Chen Danqingsaid, “If the spirit of Lu Xun is to be skeptical, critical, and to stand up for what is right, then this spirit has not only not been carried on, it has been eradicated with unprecedented success. I don’t suggest that we carry on this spirit, because it’s impossible for anyone to do so: you can’t manage it unless you have two or more lives, or unless you were born into the same era as Lu Xun. The best way to go is to adopt that which is opposite the spirit of Lu Xun: silence, obedience, enslavement, to the extent that you become the flawless epitome of the slave.”

So let’s get rid of Lu Xun completely, and welcome Little Shengyang with open arms. Let the people forget the inequality and suffering of the real world through laughter, and through laughter gradually become numb, gradually become stupid…

Hehe, the nation needs you more than you’ll ever know, because this is an era when lunatics and mobsters run amok. Our students need role models, so my buddies and I will always stand by your side…

Lu Jun, co-founder of Yirenping, an anti-discrimination NGO, said about 20 police officers broke into its offices in the early hours of Tuesday, taking away financial receipts, project contacts and several computers and laptops.

[…] Lu said before the search, police had taken his colleague, a man surnamed Cao, into custody for several hours and entered the office with Cao. Cao had been involved in a project on public interest law and has since fled Beijing, according to Lu.

Lu said he believed the raid was linked to his calls for the release of five women activists, who were detained just over two weeks ago, apparently for planning to demonstrate against sexual harassment on public transport.

“I feel the message is that the police want to suppress my calls for solidarity with these women rights activists,” Lu said in a telephone interview from New York, where he is a visiting scholar. “The second signal is that striking down NGOs is a priority.” [Source]

Mr. Lu said the authorities carted away files, computers and laptops, and briefly detained one of the center’s employees before changing the locks on the doors.

“We can’t even get into the offices, and the police won’t give us any information,” said Mr. Lu, speaking from New York, where he is a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at New York University. He said the center’s five employees, fearing for their safety, had left the Chinese capital.

It was unclear if the authorities intended to close the offices for good. [Source]

The raid happened on the same day the International Olympic Committee arrived in Beijing to begin a four-day inspection to determine whether Beijing should host the 2022 Winter Olympics. The convergence was noted by human rights groups as the latest sign the Chinese government intends to ignore international concerns and specific stipulations laid out by Olympic organizers.

When Beijing was chosen to host the 2008 Olympics, many had hoped that it would help improve the government’s human rights records. But oppression of activists and harassment of NGOs has only worsened, rights groups say.

A notice from the Student Affairs Office of a university in Guangzhou, posted on social media, read: ‘‘There are reports that students at 10 universities have signed a petition. Please ensure all institutes quickly hold activities to deeply penetrate student and classroom circles, investigate, and do educational and dissuasive work.’’

The pushback had the effect of publicizing the petition. ‘‘If they hadn’t issued the notice, not that many people would have known about this,’’ wrote a student who posted it, who other feminists said was at the South China University of Technology. ‘‘Now the whole university knows.’’

Students were called in for ‘‘guidance’’ meetings with university officials or teachers, a student at another university wrote in a social media message.

‘‘Initially I didn’t think too much of it,’’ she wrote. Her philosophy professor supported the feminists, so didn’t go too hard on her.

‘‘But others have had a different experience,’’ she wrote. ‘‘Students who were out of town were called back. I heard some were warned so severely they were frightened and in tears.’’ [Source]

A petition distributed at Sun-Yat Sen University in Guangzhou, the alma mater of Zheng Churan (aka Da Tu), has been translated by Libcom.org. The same post features an essay by Li Weizhi, the partner of Zheng Churan, about the mutual solidarity between China’s feminist activists and labor activists. Li writes:

During the sanitation workers’ strike in Guangzhou University Town in 2014, Da Tu was on the spot and later wrote, from a gender perspective, a news report “Look! Women are Fighting!” It reflected the subjectivity of female workers in this strike, inspiring and encouraging all workers, and smashed the stereotype of always men-dominated strikes in the minds of outsiders.

Women’s rights activists like Da Tu have always paid close attention to workers’ rights and interests. Therefore, it is not surprising that when they are kept in detention, workers come with their support and solidarity.

Many warmhearted workers from Xiamen expressed their support for these five detained activists with photos.

Chuan: One analysis is that this is related to the feminist petition to cancel CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala.5 What do you think?

Anonymous: There’s definitely some relation, but I don’t think it’s as big as [some] imagine. It’s occurred to me before that some gender equality people would get arrested during Xi’s Jinping’s administration. Because in 2013, when Xi had just assumed office, at that time I was in Guangzhou with [some of the people now being detained] organizing a training workshop for college students, also related to gender equality. That was the most difficult [狼狈] workshop I’ve ever done. We had arranged to do it in a hotel. We had 30-some people, and as soon as we tried to enter, we were kicked out. So we tried three other hotels. None were willing to let us in… And this was very similar to the present situation: all the students from Guangdong were phoned by their fudaoyuan [political counselors]6, who told them [not to participate], and five or six actually [decided not to participate], and afterwards the school kept [harassing] them. And at the time the Guobao [secret police]7 followed us around all day… So already at that time it occurred to us that Xi’s assumption of office might be a disaster for gender equality.

C: At the time I asked someone about this, and she thought it wasn’t that the authorities were specifically targeting the topic of gender equality, so much as it was part of a general crackdown on civil society. You disagree?

A: For [several] years now [the NGO that organized that workshop] has organized at least ten workshops every year, most unrelated to gender, and that was the one they chose to suppress… LGBT-related activities have also been targeted, especially in Beijing. Last year around June 48, at least twenty LGBT-related events were forced to be canceled…. Even watching films together wasn’t allowed. [Source]

These events are especially puzzling because the fourth plenum of the 18th party congress last autumn trumpeted a new party commitment to the “rule of law”.

Although ambiguous, “rule of law” at a minimum suggests that the government should not persecute those who seek to reasonably support its laws and policies.

Of course, every country’s legal system needs to be rooted in local conditions. “Rule of law” in China need not mean precisely what it means in the United States or elsewhere: part of what it means to be a sovereign nation is for that nation to define its own laws, guided by its own values. Inevitably, “rule of law” in China is currently guided by the pre-eminent importance of ensuring stability and private compliance with public rules.

Yet the Chinese government would be dropping a stone on its own foot by prosecuting Wu, Wang and their fellow detainees. The government, after all, has publicly acknowledged that it needs private assistance to stop official lawlessness. [Source]